Alien Isolation Gameplay Video Aims To Do The Opposite Of Aliens: Colonial Marines

Remember that horrible game that set the masses ablaze with shame and anger? You know, that game that was beaten into the ground like Brock Lesnar at the hands of Alistair Overeem? Or broke the respect that gamers had for Gearbox like Anderson Silva broke his leg on Chris Weidman's steel body? Well, Creative Assembly wants to do the opposite of what all those studios and Sega managed to mangle with Aliens: Colonial Marines.

A new gameplay video of Alien Isolation features more than seven full minutes of gameplay courtesy of the prime-time advertisers of video game content at IGN. The video is expertly crafted to give gamers an inescapable idea of what Creative Assembly has in store with the game, and if you're a fan of the new-age hipster horror games that have taken the indie scene by storm, you're likely to like what Alien Isolation delivers.

When the game was originally announced it was met with tons of skepticism from gamers who had already been burned and burned badly by Aliens: Colonial Marines. However, there are a few key differences between both games: There's only one alien in Isolation and you don't get any weapons.

Taking away a player's ability to go on the offensive means that the scope of the game changes. In games where you're given a gun it's no longer about players being hunted, but rather players on the hunt. There was a few shifts of balance in the original 1999 release of Aliens Vs Predator by Rebellion and Fox Interactive because the aliens in that game were freaking hard; they were inescapably fast and ammo was limited. For a game that old, the AI proved to be somewhat of a challenge, but at the same time players with itchy trigger fingers and proper reflexes could still down hordes of enemy xenomorphs with ease.

In the case of a game like Aliens: Colonial Marines, all forms of desperation and horror were put on the back burner for a more Call of Duty oriented experience. There's a reason for that but I'm not going to go bringing up that pulp-beaten cadaver (I put a link there anyway because I'm tactless like that).

With Alien Isolation, the game takes on the role of sub-genre survival horror games like Slender: The Arrival, Amnesia, Outlast and other hipster horror games where players are tossed in nearly impossible situations while trying to survive.

The only thing I do kind of hope for is makeshift weapons, just like in the original Alien movie... because yeah, they did at least try to defend themselves at some point. However, getting a hold of a buckshot, sawed-off shotty needs to stay out of the picture (unless modders decide to jump in on the action) because the game goes from horror-survival to semi-horror first-person shooter.

The only other thing I think Creative needs to focus heavily on is the AI of the xenomorph. They only got one AI to handle. I do wonder how well it will still work out given the game has to be limited in scope to fit the limitations of the PS3 and Xbox 360. An alien xenomorph that can easily scale walls, run fast and use the infrastructure of the system to traverse the environment would be ideal, but is it possible with the 512/256 RAM limits of the geriatric twins? We certainly don't get that kind of vibe from the AI in the video above, but here's hoping it's a lot more relentless in other parts of the game.

Last but not least: can we please get more Aliens games with this kind of vibe? I wouldn't mind if they tried another AvP game with a DayZ, Slender, Amnesia survival element to it, where the player is still very vulnerable; and utilizing the environment and proper survival instincts is still key. Just because a game has guns doesn't mean it has to be another dude-bro, 'Murica-or-nothing Call of Duty spam-fest.